danbacher Photo of John Laird courtesy of California Natural Resources Agency.
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by Dan Bacher
The state and federal governments on November 29 announced they plan to release Delta science studies in response to the voluminous comments they received criticizing a controversial agreement that fast-tracks the construction of the peripheral canal under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).
Tuesday’s press release from the U.S. Department of Interior claimed that Interior, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the California Natural Resources Agency and the California Department of Water Resources “announced a first step in responding to public comments on a draft Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with California water agencies that will enhance transparency in developing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) by speeding access to draft technical documents.”
“This initial step will be followed by additional responses to public comments that have been filed on the MOA,” Interior noted.
The “public comments” included letters from unprecedented 242 fishing, tribal and environmental organizations, 17 California Legislators and 11 Members of Congress, who slammed the top-down process that is dominated by corporate agribusiness and water agency interests that export water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. To read the entire Environmental Water Caucus letter, go to:http://www.ewccalifornia.org/reports/moaLetter11-16-11.pdf.
The letter from the 242 groups stated, “The MOA was negotiated behind closed doors and only serves to reinforce the growing awareness that the BDCP is biased in favor of the export water contractor’s agenda to increase exports from the Delta and its connected rivers, despite the documented negative impacts those exports have had on endangered fish species, Delta habitats, water quality and public trust values.”
Both Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes and Secretary of Natural Resources John Laird extolled the “virtues” of the plan to build the canal or tunnel to export more water to corporate agribusiness and southern California.
“The Bay Delta Conservation Plan may propose the largest habitat restoration project ever to be undertaken in the United States in the largest and most important estuary on the west coast of the Americas,” claimed Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes. “This needs to be done right, and that is why we are announcing our joint commitment that all parties have access to key documents involved in the development of the BDCP.”
“Our expectation is that broad stakeholder understanding of its scientific underpinnings will improve their engagement in both the plan and its implementation,” said Secretary of Natural Resources John Laird. “Fish, farmers and the 25 million average Californians who rely on the San Francisco-San Joaquin Delta for water deserve nothing less.”
Laird continued: “One thing is absolutely clear as review of the comments on the MOA have begun — no one wants even the appearance of a special advantage. Thus, while other comments on the MOA will be addressed in coming weeks, there is no need to wait on committing to release all documents to all parties at the same time.”
The “enhancement” will be finalized in a letter among the controlling agencies in December, according to Interior. The letter will spell out that key BDCP-related documents will be posted on the internet at http://www.BayDeltaConservationPlan.com and made available to all parties for review at the same time. A list of expected release dates will be posted on the website within the week.
I am glad that Laird and Hayes have agreed to releasing all of the controversial BDCP documents “to all parties at the same time.” However, I find Laird’s comments greenwashing the peripheral canal plan, under the guise of a habitat conservation plan, disturbing.
When he says, “Fish, farmers and the 25 million average Californians who rely on the San Francisco-San Joaquin Delta for water deserve nothing less,” Laird echoes the false notion that the only “real stakeholders” regarding the future of the Delta are fish, “farmers” and urban water users, a concept that both the Delta Vision and BDCP fiascos have embodied.
What about Delta residents, boaters, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, California Indian Tribes, conservationists, environmental justice communities, business owners and all of those other people whose lives depend on the health of the Delta and its fish populations? Laird has to date done nothing to include them in the BDCP Management Committee because he apparently considers water exporters and political hacks to be the only “real” stakeholders.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (http://www.restorethedelta.org), responded to Interior’s release by stating, “The BDCP decides to start releasing science documents because they haven’t been transparent. So now we are supposed to trust the science that they are selectively releasing – after we were not at the table to see how that ’science” was created. Judge Wanger, the Delta smelt judge who retired a few weeks ago, is now a lawyer for the Westlands Water District (Nothing like the growing nexus between corporations and the judiciary in this country.)”
“Phil Isenberg, chair of the Delta Stewardship Council, is telling everyone that the contractors will settle for a 9000 cfs. pipe to grab Delta water, and (drumroll please), the BDCP, which doesn’t have a project, released a job description for a project manager to build the tunnel. Qualifications are: he/she must have worked for one of the water contractor groups that wants to take the water,” Barrigan-Parrilla noted.
Laird and Gerald Meral, Deputy Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, have continued the abysmal environmental policies of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in pushing for the construction of a peripheral canal or tunnel through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
However, Laird and Hayes have actually eclipsed the Schwarzenegger and Bush administrations in slaughtering Delta fish and Central Valley chinook salmon in the state and federal water project facilities in the South Delta. The Obama and Brown administrations, under the “leadership” of Laird and Hayes, have killed record numbers of Sacramento splittail and other fish in the pumps while exporting record amounts of water out of the Delta this year.
Over 11 million fish, including 9 million Sacramento splittail, have been “salvaged” at the Delta pumps near Tracy in 2011. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006.
The other 2 million fish “salvaged” at the pumps include striped bass, largemouth bass, Sacramento River spring chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other species. Yet the numbers salvaged are just a fraction of the actual loss of fish in the pumps; scientific studies point to the real loss being 5 to 10 times the “salvage” numbers. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/09/09/over-11-million-fish-salvaged-in-delta-death-pumps-since-january-1).
The state and federal water projects pumped a record 6.5 million acre-feet of water from the Delta in 2011. The previous record, set during the Schwarzenegger and Bush administrations, was 6.3 million acre-feet in 2005.
The peripheral canal or tunnel that Laird and Hayes are pushing will only result in the extinction of protected Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and green sturgeon because this “improved conveyance” will inevitably result in increased water exports from an estuary that has been ravaged by the current diversions.
The BDCP is in reality a “Bad Delta Canal Plan,” not a “Bay Delta Conservation Plan.”
danbacher I strongly urge everybody to vote for Rob Walton as “worst of the 1%” for his efforts to crush labor and human rights and drive local “mom and pop” operations out of business, as well for funding corporate environmental NGO efforts to privatize the oceans by promoting “catch shares” programs and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
by Dan Bacher
Brave New Films, the film studio that produced the ground-breaking documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” is holding an online vote to pick the “worst of the 1%.” They’re looking for the person who is doing the most with their wealth to exploit the rest of the country – and to privatize public services and public trust resources.
Walmart Watch (http://www.walmartwatch.org) is urging people to vote for Rob Walton, chairman of Walmart and an heir to the Walton’s family fortune, as the worst of the one percenters. Walmart Watch is an organization that “seeks to hold Walmart fully accountable for its impact on communities, the American workforce, the retail sector, the environment and the nation’s economy.”
I also strongly urge everybody to vote for Rob Walton as “worst of the 1%” for his efforts to crush labor and human rights and drive local “mom and pop” operations out of business, as well for funding corporate environmental NGO efforts to privatize the oceans by promoting “catch shares” programs and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
To vote, go to: http://www.bravenewfoundation.org/dirty-thirty/all/rob-walton.
“When it comes to the 1%, Rob Walton and the Walton family are it,” according to Walmart Watch. “The Walton family has amassed more than $93 billion in wealth, making them the richest family in the country.”
“The Waltons inherited that wealth, much of it was created by paying many workers at poverty-level wages, offering poor benefits, and lowering conditions in the supply chain by demanding ever-lower prices. Walmart’s trade deficit with China alone eliminated hundreds of thousands of US manufacturing jobs,” the group ntoed.
Rob Walton himself has an overall estimated worth of $21 billion running the world’s largest private employer. It is estimated now that 1.4 million people work for Walmart or 1 out of every 222 people in the U.S.
“The dividends of the Walmart stock the Waltons own alone could go a long way toward making Walmart jobs good, living wage jobs. Instead he chooses to keep the average employee below the family poverty line and cut health benefits for hundreds of thousands employees,” the group added.
The Waltons have used the Walton Family Foundation to advance an extreme anti-worker and anti-human rights agenda. In the last five years, the Walton Family Foundation (where Rob sits on the board) has given money to the Heritage Foundation, the National Right to Work Foundation and other groups that advance the agenda of Wall Street banksters and other corporate operatives who have looted the economy.
Walmart Watch stated, “In 2010, the Walton Family Foundation spent more than $157 million to support the so-called school choice movement. This movement generally seeks to divert money from public schools to private schools through policies such as vouchers and charter schools. These donations make the Walton Family Foundation one of the largest funders of efforts to undermine public education.”
Wal-Mart gives $36 million to ocean privatization efforts
In addition to anti-worker and school privatization campaigns, the corporate giant also dumps millions into “environmental” programs to greenwash the privatization of public trust resources.
The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), a national grassroots recreational fishing organization, in August slammed the Walton Family Foundation’s contribution of $36 million to ocean privatization efforts through “catch shares” programs and the creation of so-called “marine protected areas.”
“Wal-Mart announced this week its efforts to help fund the demise of both the recreational and commercial fishing industry while also working to ensure that the next generation of sportsmen will have less access to coastal fish stocks than at any point in U.S. history,” according to a news release from RFA (http://www.joinrfa.org/press/Walmart_081711.pdf).
In a August 16th news release from Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Walton Family Foundation announced “investments” totaling more than $71.8 million awarded to various “environmental” initiatives in 2010. The foundation handed over $36 million alone to Marine Conservation grantees including Ocean Conservancy, Conservation International Foundation, Marine Stewardship Council, World Wildlife Fund and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
The five top grantees were: Conservation International, $18,640,917; the Nature Conservancy,$9,305,449; Environmental Defense Fund $7,086,054; the Marine Stewardship Council, $4,500,000; and the Ocean Conservancy, $3,757,768 ((http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/walton-family-foundation-invests-718-million-in-environmental-initiatives-in-2010-127835788.html).
Critics of Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, have blasted the company for decades for being able to sell its products at cheap prices only by employing sweatshops, undercutting competitors, wielding its market power to cripple both competitors and suppliers, and flouting national and international health, safety, labor, and environmental standards. Anti-corporate globalization opponents have long regarded Wal-Mart as a virtual “Darth Vader” of retailers, as documented in the film, “The High Price of Low Cost.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJMYZwL8sPA).
Greenwashing Wal-Mart’s image
However, in 2006 the retail giant hired Adam Werbach former Sierra Club president to “polish” its image (http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/2006/green_greenwashing.php). This latest Wal-Mart release is apparently part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to greenwash its image – and extend control over public trust resources.
According to the release, the Walton Family Foundation “focuses on globally important marine areas and works with grantees and other partners to create networks of effectively managed protected areas that conserve key biological features, and ensure the sustainable utilization of marine resources – especially fisheries – in a way that benefits both nature and people.”
“We focus our work in the United States’ primary river systems and in some of the world’s most ecologically significant marine areas,” said Scott Burns, director of the foundation’s Environment Focus Area and the former director of marine conservation at the World Wildlife Fund. “It’s important to us to protect and conserve natural resources while also recognizing the roles these waters play in the livelihoods of those who live nearby.”
The RFA countered that these specially managed areas of coastal waters are also referred to as “marine protected areas” or “marine reserves,” and the end result is denied angler access, of little or no benefit to the very people whom Wal-Mart claims to benefit.
Marine protected areas without real protection
“A quick visit to the Ocean Conservancy website should be telling enough for anglers interested in learning where Wal-Mart’s profits are being spent,” said RFA executive director Jim Donofrio. “These folks are pushing hard to complete California’s network of exclusionary zones throughout the entire length of coastline, and they’ve made it very clear that they would like to see the West Coast version of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) extended into other coastal U.S. waters.”
Grassroots environmentalists, fishermen, members of Indian Tribes, civil liberties activists and environmental justice advocates have criticized Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, for its numerous conflicts of interest and the violation of numerous state, federal and international laws.
The so-called “marine protected areas” established under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil drilling and spills, water pollution, wave and wind energy projects, military testing, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other human impacts upon the ocean other than fishing and gathering. In an extreme case of corporate greenwashing, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, served as chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force that created these questionable “marine protected areas” on the Southern California coast. She also served on the task forces for the North Central and North Central Coasts.
When not chairing or serving on these rigged panels, Reheis-Boyd has been busy lobbying for new oil drillling off the California coast, tar sands drillling in Canada (http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Alberta+oilsands+green+enough+California/5530495/story.html?cid=megadrop_story), and for the weakening of environmental regulations throughout the West.
The Walton Family Foundation release also said that so-called “marine protected areas” being promoted with the foundation’s money include those in Indonesia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico.
“Here’s an organization which has publicly opposed creation of artificial reefs used by Wal-Mart’s tackle buyers, in some cases openly advocating for their removal, yet the Walton family is handing over tons of money for support,” Donofrio said of Ocean Conservancy in particular.
Jack Sobel, a senior scientist for the Ocean Conservancy, has said “There’s little evidence that artificial reefs have a net benefit,” citing concerns such as toxicity, damage to ecosystems and concentrating fish into one place (worsening overfishing).(http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/6895)
Wal-Mart boycott follows Safeway boycott
“Shopping for fishing equipment at Wal-Mart is contributing directly to the demise of our sport, it’s supporting lost fishing opportunities and decreased coastal access for all Americans,” Donofrio said. “I hope all RFA members across the country will remember that when it’s time to gear up, but I would also wonder if perhaps our industry can help spread the message and support our local tackle shops by also pulling product off Wal-Mart’s shelves.”
RFA in April 2011 announced its support of a national boycott of the Safeway Supermarket chain, including Genuardi’s in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, because of that corporation’s support for California’s widely-contested MLPA initiative.
“Apparently Safeway has gotten some bad advice from the people in the ocean protection racket, a community to which the California-based mega-corporation is now donating profits,” said Jim Martin, West Coast Regional Director of the RFA. “Safeway says it is supporting groups that make a difference like the Food Marketing Institute’s Sustainable Seafood Working Group, the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions and the World Wildlife Fund’s Aquaculture Dialogues, but it’s little more than corporate greenwashing.”
RFA believes it’s time that Wal-Mart was added to the angler boycott list as well.
“The Walton family created this huge corporate entity which has threatened the vibrancy of our local retail outlets, and now they’re essentially doing the same thing with our fishing communities,” Donofrio said.
“Much like Safeway has done with their financial investment in the environmental business community, Wal-Mart apparently prefers customers buy farm-raised fish and seafood caught by foreign countries outside of U.S. waters, while denying individual anglers the ability to head down to the ocean to score a few fish for their own table,” noted Donofrio.
Wal-Mart pushes catch shares program
The Walton Family Foundation is also working “to create economic incentives for ocean conservation,” while candidly pledging their support for “projects that reverse the incentives to fish unsustainably that exist in ‘open access fisheries’ by creating catch share programs,” according to the official news release.
A broad coalition of commercial and recreational fishing, consumer and environmental groups is opposing the catch shares programs being pushed by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, a former vice-chair of the Board of Directors of Environmental Defense, because these programs amount to the privatization of public trust resources by concentrating fisheries in the hands of a few corporate hands. Wherever catch shares have been introduced, local fishing communities, fish populations and the environment have been devastated.
“A catch share, also known as an individual fishing quota, is a transferable voucher that gives individuals or businesses the ability to access a fixed percentage of the total authorized catch of a particular species,” according to Food and Water Watch (http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/fish-inc). “Fishery management systems based on catch shares turn a public resource into private property and have lead to socioeconomic and environmental problems. Contrary to arguments by catch share proponents – namely large commercial fishing interests – this management system has exacerbated unsustainable fishing practices.”
Donofrio emphasized, “Our local outfitters and tackle shops along the coast have had to face an immense challenge by going up against Wal-Mart’s purchasing power during the last decade, but now that the Walton family is so up front about their opposition to open access fisheries, it’s hard for me to believe that any sportsmen would ever be interested in shopping there again.”
“California anglers have been outraged to learn that money they spend at a Safeway grocery store might end up in the hands of anti-fishing groups like the EDF and the Ocean Conservancy, so I hope more anglers will join the national boycott by sending a message to Wal-Mart as well as Safeway,” Martin added.
Sam and Helen Walton launched their “modest retail business in 1962″ with guiding principle of helping “increase opportunity and improve the lives of others along the way,” according to the Walton Family Foundation website. It is that principle the foundation says, that makes them “more focused than ever on sustaining the Walton’s timeless small-town values and deep commitment to making life better for individuals and communities alike.”
RFA said grassroots efforts to combat the corporate anti-fishing, pro-privatization agenda are more than just an uphill climb.
“The EDF catch share coffers are already filled to the top, while Pew Charitable Trusts has billions in reserve,” Donofrio said. “The individual anglers and local business owners are being denied opportunity, and I hope the federal trade representatives are willing to get onboard with their support of real small-town values.” He emphasized that the Ocean Conservancy and EDF combined received more than $10 million in Walton Family Foundation grants in 2010.
EDF: RFA’s contention is ‘just wrong’
The EDF public relations department was quick to respond in defense of their $7,086,054 Walton Family Foundation donation.
Tom Lalley, communications director for the Oceans Program of the Environmental Defense Fund, claimed, “RFA’s contention that the contribution in question was made by Wal-Mart is just wrong.”
“The contribution was made by the Walton Family Fund and not Wal-Mart,” Lalley told http://www.fishnewseu.com. “These are two different entities. There is no connection between the two other than the fact that the fund’s money comes from private holdings of the same Waltons who started and managed Wal-Mart, but none of the money comes from the existing company. So it was the family, and specifically the family’s foundation, that made a contribution for sustainable fishing and ocean conservation, and not the store.”
According to RFA managing director Jim Hutchinson, Jr., the marketing executives at EDF are “some of the best in the ‘astroturfing’ business,” but he calls Lalley’s claims “almost comical.”
“So I leave you a $1,000 bill in the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart, tucked under a box of sugar coated corn flakes, does that mean that Wal-Mart actually gave you the $1,000, or maybe EDF would argue it was really a contribution from Tony the Tiger himself,” Hutchinson laughed.
“The heirs to the corporate fortune have spent two decades successfully building back their stake in this publicly held company to the point they now own over 50% of the Wal-Mart operation. The Walton Family Foundation is Wal-Mart, and the Walton family itself is making billions in our local communities, so to say that the two are separate entities is simply ridiculous. Actually expecting us to believe that statement is borderline insanity,” Hutchinson emphasized.
Commercial fishermen join recreational anglers in denouncing Wal-Mart’s support of privatization
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), praised the RFA for criticizing Wal-Mart’s contributions to ocean privatization efforts and welcomed the organization’s call for a Wal-Mart boycott.
“Wa-Mart is wrong on this issue, just as it has been in the past on labor and community issues,” said Grader. “The privatization of public trust resources is the antithesis of conservation.”
“I’ve been boycotting Wal-Mart for decades and it’s absolutely great that recreational and commercial fishermen are together on this,” noted Grader.
It is worth noting that Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy, the two top recipients of Walton Family Foundation funds, are known throughout the world for their top-down “environmental” programs that run roughshod over local communities to achieve their corporate greenwashing goals.
Corporate environmental NGO ‘leaders’ support peripheral canal
The Nature Conservancy in California is a strong backer of state and federal plans to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies. Peripheral canal opponents, including recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Delta residents, family farmers and California Indian Tribes, believe the construction of the canal would result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other imperiled fish populations.
The Walton Family Foundation’s contribution to Conservation International is no surprise, since Rob Walton is chairman of the executive committee of Conservation International’s Board of Directors (http://www.conservation.org/about/team/bod).
Also serving on the Board of Conservation International is Stewart A. Resnick, Chairman of the Board of Roll International Corporation, who is the largest tree fruit grower in the world and one of the biggest recipients of subsidized water from the imperiled California Delta. While making a tidy profit from selling his subsidized water back to the public, Resnick has waged a relentless campaign to divert more water from the Delta through the peripheral canal and has done everything in his power to eviscerate Endangered Species Act protections for Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt and other listed species.
Resnick’s Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, an agribusiness “Astroturf” group, has also spent a great deal of effort in litigation attempting to eradicate striped bass from the Bay-Delta Estuary by falsely claiming that “striped bass,” rather than water exports, are the cause of Delta smelt and salmon declines. For more information, go to: http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/11/09/public-voices-100-percent-opposition-to-striped-bass-reduction-plan.
MLPA Initiative Background:
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA “Initiative” to “implement” the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.
The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of “marine protected areas” included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of interest. Catherine Reheis Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association who is pushing for new oil drilling off the California coast, served as the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast.
The MLPA Initiative operates through a controversial private/public “partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The Schwarzenegger administration authorized the implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG).
danbacher Please send your letter to stop the striped bass eradication plan through the water4fish.org website. It only takes a few clicks. If your organization would like to sign as a supporter of this letter, contact Dick Pool, rbpool [at] protroll.com. For my report on the DFG public meeting on this proposal, go to: http://www.fishsniffer.com/content/1500-public-voices-100-percent-opposition-striped-bass-reduction-plan.html.
California DFG Threatens to Eradicate Striped Bass
In an unprecedented move, the California Department of Fish and Game has been forced to propose regulations which will eradicate striped bass from the San Francisco Bay and Delta. A water contractor group known as the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta filed a lawsuit against the DFG alleging that striped bass are one of the primary causes of the loss of endangered salmon.
The DFG was forced into a settlement on the lawsuit and the Department now has issued draft regulations that will eradicate the striped bass. Fisherman and the fishing industry are livid about the proposal. It will reduce the minimum size a fisherman can keep to 12 inches and it will allow a bag limit of up to 40 stripers in some locations.
This proposal stinks rotten. The lawsuit was funded by Stewart Resnick, the billionaire farmer and developer who sees this as an opportunity to once again try to blame the fish and fishermen for the problems in the Delta caused by overpumping.
We see it differently. It is a brazen move to undo the public trust doctrine and the rights of the citizens of California to use and enjoy the water and aquatic resources of the state. We need to fight back with every mechanism at our disposal.
A massive letter writing campaign to the Fish and Game Commission has the ability to kill the DFG proposal. If the Commission votes for the proposal, it will go into effect. If the commission votes against the proposal, it is dead and the water contractors will have no further recourse. The regulations will then stay as they are today. We are asking every concerned striper, Delta advocate and supporter of the Bay-Delta Estuary to use one or both of the following procedures to send letters and emails to the Commission.
If you want to write and mail a personal letter, click here to see a couple of sample letters http://water4fish.org/write-letters-to-legislators/index.php/ To use the automated email letter, click “to Continue” below and you will see the email letter to the Commission with copies to Fish and Game. On the email letter please do two things.
Fill out your name address and email and click on the box that gives fishing group leaders permission to add your name to a mass protest that will be submitted to the Commission.
Click “Send My Letter”, your email will be immediately sent and you will receive a confirmation.
We will protect your confidentiality. We will not give, lend, share or sell your email address to anyone except the organization that you list on the form.
Thank you. With your support, we will win this battle.
The following organizations support this letter campaign and request your support. California Sportfishing Protection Alliance – Water4Fish — California Striped Bass Association – The Fish Sniffer — USA Fishing – Western Outdoor News.
Additional Supporting Groups will be forthcoming.
danbacher The letter criticized the agreement for offering the signatories, including water agencies from southern California, the San Joaquin Valley and Santa Clara Valley, “extraordinary opportunities to influence the process, to the disadvantage of Delta communities, environmental organizations, fishing groups and the public at large.”
by Dan Bacher
On November 22, Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) and 16 other Northern California state legislators asked the Department of the Interior and California Resources Agency to rescind the approval of the widely-criticized Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with a select group of water exporters.
The Obama and Brown administrations are continuing to fast-track the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more water to corporate agribusiness and southern California, in spite of tremendous risk to Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations and Delta communities.
Their letter to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird was preceded by a letter sent to Salazar and Laird on November 16 by an unprecedented 242 environmental organizations, environmental justice groups, Native American Tribes, recreational angling organizations, commercial fishing groups and outdoor businesses urging them to rescind the MOA. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/11/18/bay-delta-plan-agreement-opposed-by-242-groups)
“As representatives of the people of California, we have serious concerns with the current direction of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP),” the California legislators wrote. “The most critical among those include a failure of transparency in the process; the limited set of alternatives being considered; scientific inadequacy, including a lack of flow criteria for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay Delta); the absence of cost/benefit analyses; and, the undue influence granted to State and Federal export water agencies to the exclusion of a meaningful role for other public interests.”
The letter criticized the agreement for offering the signatories, including water agencies from southern California, the San Joaquin Valley and Santa Clara Valley, “extraordinary opportunities to influence the process, to the disadvantage of Delta communities, environmental organizations, fishing groups and the public at large.”
“The MOA binds the parties to a rushed timeline for completing the plan, making adequate scientific analysis and consensus-building impossible. It establishes that long-term guarantees of ‘certainty’ to Central Valley Project export water contractors will be a first priority for state and federal decision makers. And, it memorializes the ‘pay to play’ nature of the BDCP, as many of our Washington legislators have phrased it, by giving the export water agencies an unprecedented level of control over what should be an open, public process,” the letter continued.
The legislators cited the recent letter by Representatives George Miller, Doris Matsui, Jerry McNerney, Mike Thompson and John Garamendi to U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar that urged him to retract Interior’s approval of the MOA and allow a public comment period of 45 days on the agreement prior to final approval.
“We urge the same, and for the State, in parallel, to retract the Department of Water Resources’ approval of the MOA immediately,” Wolk and the other legislators wrote.
Signees to the letter include California Senators Mark Desaulnier, Loni Hancock and Jared Huffman and Assembly Members Michael Allen, Bill Berryhill, Susan Bonilla, Joan Buchanan, Wesley Chesbro, Paul Fong, Alyson Huber, William Monning, Dr. Richard Pan, Nancy Skinner, Mariko Yamada, Jerry Hill and Roger Dickinson.
The letter asked for a reply in writing by December 16, 2011.
The opposition to the BDCP MOA, a plan to export more water disguised as a habitat conservation plan, is mushrooming. Members of Congress and California legislators are opposed to it. A massive coalition of 242 environmental groups, Indian Tribes, fishing organizations, environmental justice groups and consumer advocacy organizations is opposed to it.
Yet the Obama and Brown administrations appear committed to a plan that is likely to result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and Sacramento splittail.
These are the same administrations that have eclipsed even the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations in slaughtering Delta fish and Central Valley salmon in the state and federal water project facilities in the South Delta. The Obama and Brown administrations killed record numbers of Sacramento splittail and other fish in the pumps while exporting record amounts of water out of the Delta this year.
Over 11 million fish, including 9 million Sacramento splittail, have been “salvaged” at the Delta pumps near Tracy in 2011. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006.
The other 2 million fish “salvaged” at the pumps include striped bass, largemouth bass, Sacramento River spring chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other species. Yet the numbers salvaged are just a fraction of the actual loss of fish in the pumps; scientific studies point to the real loss being 5 to 10 times the “salvage” numbers. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/09/09/over-11-million-fish-salvaged-in-delta-death-pumps-since-january-1).
The state and federal water projects pumped a record 6.5 million acre-feet of water from the Delta in 2011, according to government data compiled by Spreck Rosecrans at Environmental Defense. The previous record was 6.3 million acre-feet in 2005.
If Salazar and Laird have no problem killing record numbers of fish and exporting record amounts of water, is it any surprise that they are fast-tracking the plan to destroy the Delta by building the peripheral canal?
danbacher This photo shows the fish weir and fish ladder entrance at Nimbus Fish Hatchery in Rancho Cordova. The weir stops the upstream migration of fish because of the limited spawning area between this spot and Nimbus Dam. The rack also guides fish to the ladder entrance. Photo courtesy of California Department of Fish and Game.
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by Dan Bacher
(Sacramento) The returns of spawning fall run chinook salmon to the Nimbus American River Fish Hatchery confirmed what anglers saw before the upper stretch of river closed to fishing on October –big numbers of “grilse” (two-year-old fish) and smaller numbers of adult chinooks.
The hatchery has trapped 2,168 adult males and 1,822 adult females to date, a total of 3,990 adults, and 4,542 grilse. Last season to date the facility had trapped 3,701 adult males and 2,486 females, a total of 6,187 adults, and 1,398 grilse, according to Paula Hoover, hatchery manager.
When you combine the adult fish and two-year-olds to date, the hatchery trapped a total of 8,532 fish in 2011 and 7,585 fish in 2010.
The hatchery has spawned a total of 917 females and 917 males to date, obtaining a total of 5,703,571 eggs so far. “We’ll have no problem meeting our mitigation goal,” said Hoover.
Hoover reported hatchery workers have observed a few steelhead at the hatchery, but they haven’t started counting them yet. The facility spawns steelhead from late December through March.
The DFG’s carcass counts of natural spawning salmon in the American won’t be released until January when the surveys are completed and compiled, along with the counts from the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba and Mokelumne rivers.
The salmon counts this fall to date are an improvement over the low runs of 2008 and 2008, when Central Valley fall chinook salmon runs collapsed, due to a combination of record water exports out of the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta, declining water quality and poor ocean conditions.
However, the runs this year appear to be well behind the fall spawning escapements on the American River from 2001 to 2004, when approximately 100,000 to 150,000 chinooks, a combination of naturally-spawning and hatchery chinooks, returned to this unique urban river.
The three major state-run hatcheries in the Central Valley – Nimbus in Sacramento County, Feather River in Butte County and Mokelumne in San Joaquin County – will take approximately 38 million eggs over the next two months in order to produce a total of 24 million Chinook salmon for release next spring, according to Dr. Mark Clifford of Nimbus Hatchery.
“Around the state, there are eight state-run salmon and steelhead hatcheries, all of which will participate in the salmon spawning effort,” said Clifford. “Those hatcheries, along with federally run hatcheries, will together be responsible for the release of 40 million juvenile salmon into California waters. These massive spawning efforts were put in place over the last 50 years to offset fish losses caused by dams that block salmon from spawning in historically used waters.”
NOAA Fisheries, in their salmon biological opinion, recommended initiating efforts to reintroduce salmon and steelhead to three rivers above the Central Valley storage dams – to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam, the American River above Folsom Dam and the Stanislaus River above New Melones Dam.
The Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe is pushing for the reintroduction of the original strain of winter run chinooks, now thriving in the Rakaira and other rivers in New Zealand, to the McCloud above Lake Shasta. The New Zealand and Maori Nation fishery agencies have agreed to provide them with the winter run chinook eggs for their reintroduction.
“We are researching and developing a proposal for a passageway around Shasta Dam for the returning spawning salmon and the outgoing ocean bound salmon fingerlings,” according to Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemen Wintu Tribe. “This passageway would ideally be designed so that it would be used by migrating Chinook salmon with little or no human intervention. In recent years, there have been many developments with fish passages, and we will be working with BOR and NOAA to develop a state-of-the-art project.”
The Tribe is currently working on their proposal and need funds to conduct research trips to existing hatcheries, surveys on the creeks and other fieldwork. They plan to submit their proposal to NOAA in the Spring of 2012.
Sisk-Franco, emphasized, “I have ‘no faith’ in the hatcheries and the overly counted Chinook in a declining Chinook practice. The Chinook need to be allow to spawn on their own, as they know how to do that the best. Keep the water ways open and full of water and they will bring their numbers back to a healthy count that can support our environment and all the relatives that enjoyed their livelihoods in all the river and tributary systems before and if we follow their needs we will reduce climate change and global warming. Or we say, ‘Global Warnings.’”
For more information, go to: http://www.winnememwintu.us or http://www.winnememwintu.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/salmon-brochure-final103011.pdf.
danbacher “The campus administration lied to the media,” said UC Davis student Eric Lee, who attended Friday’s protest. “They pepper sprayed a whole line of people and then tried to make us look like the bad guys. It’s absurd.”
Photo of the pepper spraying of students at UC Davis on November 18 courtesy of Occupy UC Davis.
by Dan Bacher
On November 22, UC Davis alumni submitted a series of requests for documents to the campus administration and the UC Office of the President under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and State Public Records Act as part of the response to the horrific pepper spraying of students peacefully protesting on the campus quad November 18.
The video of the November 18 pepper spraying incident (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&utm_source=General&utm_campaign=f6cc05a348-Daily_Update_11_20_2011&utm_medium=email) has gone viral throughout the world. The outrage over the police action has prompted UC Davis students and alumni to call for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi – and Occupy Sacramento lawyers to call on Governor Jerry Brown to arrest the officers involved in the shocking pepper spray attack.
Students and alumni are seeking to discover who ordered the police raid and why it was ordered, according to a news release from Kelsey Skaggs, a UC Davis alumna. They are also looking for the internal discussions that they feel have resulted in the administration actively disseminating misinformation about the events.
“The campus administration lied to the media,” said UC Davis student Eric Lee, who attended Friday’s protest. “They pepper sprayed a whole line of people and then tried to make us look like the bad guys. It’s absurd.”
Lee referred to the administration’s assertions that protesters surrounded police officers, cutting them off from support. Students who were present deny that this occurred; images show students peacefully seated in a ring with police stepping over them.
Student, faculty, and alumni groups are calling for an outside investigation of Friday’s incident, saying that the University of California cannot be trusted to investigate its own abuses. Many fear that Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and University of California President Mark G. Yudof will use the investigation to evade responsibility for the attack on students and to avoid making meaningful reform.
Members of the UC Davis community expressed fears that the individual police officers involved would be made scapegoats for what is clearly a systemic lack of respect for students’ right to protest.
“This is a pattern,” said Kelsey Skaggs, a UC Davis alumna. “Since the University of California began dramatic tuition increases in 2009, its police have repeatedly used violence against non-violent protesters.”
At a peaceful protest last November, a UC Irvine police officer pointed a loaded gun at students, according to Skaggs. Police at UC Berkeley have repeatedly used batons to break up protests.
“Students and alumni hope that the results of the Freedom of Information Act requests will give them insight into the administration’s use of violent tactics and the internal response to last Friday’s incident,” Skaggs concluded.
On Monday, over 5,000 people took back the quad at UC Davis in response to the pepper-spray attack against students and against fee increases in the University of California system. Chancellor Katehi made an appearance early Monday afternoon on the Quad, where she apologized for the Friday incident.
“I’m here to apologize,” she told the crowd in the largest showing to date in a week of protests tied to tuition increases, the national Occupy movement and the campus Police Department’s excessive use of force.
“I really feel horrible for what happened on Friday,” Katehi said. “If you don’t want to be students at a university that treats its students like this, I don’t want to be the chancellor of the university we had on Friday.”
On the same day that UC Davis alumni submitted a series of requests for documents, University of California President Yudof agreed to establish an “advisory panel” to study the Nov. 18 events on the UC Davis Quad that led to the pepper-spraying of protestors and the arrest of 10 individuals.
Yudof’s office also announced Tuesday that it has reached out to William Bratton, describing him as “one of the nation’s foremost authorities on law enforcement,” to lead an “independent review” of the Nov. 18 events and prepare a report to be presented to the president and the advisory panel.
Bratton is a former New York City police commissioner, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Boston police commissioner. Bratton, who now heads the New York-based Kroll consulting company, also is a “renowned expert in progressive community policing,” according to a UC Davis news release.
“My intent is to provide the chancellor and the entire University of California community with an independent, unvarnished report about what happened at Davis,” said Yudof.
However, Skaggs said the appointment of Britton was very problematic, based on some statements that Bratton made in an August 12, 2011 interview with The U.K. Telegraph, where he claimed that many young people in Great Britain had been “emboldened” by “over-cautious” policing tactics and “lenient sentencing policies” in referring to demonstrations that erupted into looting.
Bratton said police forces should be “more assertive in their dealings with offenders, leaving no doubt that crime would always meet a firm response,” according to The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8699145/UK-riots-young-thugs-should-fear-the-police-says-David-Camerons-new-crime-adviser.html).
“You want the criminal element to fear them, fear their ability to interrupt their own ability to carry out criminal behaviour, and arrest and prosecute and incarcerate them,” he told The Telegraph. “In my experience, the younger criminal element don’t fear the police and have been emboldened to challenge the police and effectively take them on.”
Skaggs emphasized, “These quotes indicate that Bratton is not necessarily as friendly to the right to peaceful protest as somebody we would like to see in this position. I think that people shouldn’t be afraid of their police forces. It’s very clear that Bratton has a different point of view in which the fear of police force is a legitimate tactic.”
“My worry is that this attitude would be applied to the campus situation. The people who are demonstrating on the UC Davis and other campuses are certainly acting within their right to assemble,” she noted.
“People protesting or occupying can sometimes expect to get arrested. What they shouldn’t expect is unprovoked, unwarranted violence,” Skaggs concluded.
For more information, contact: Kelsey Skaggs, (650) 557-5500.
danbacher The Environmental Water Caucus today issued a press release criticizing the flawed Memo of Agreement (MOA) related to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral canal. An unprecedented 242 organizations, including conservation, environmental justice and fishing groups, Indian Tribes and businesses signed on to a letter to Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasting the MOA, “an egregious agreement.”
AN EGREGIOUS AGREEMENT
Contacts:
David Nesmith, Environmental Water Caucus, ewc [at] davidnesmith.com, 510-893-1330
Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Deltakeep [at] me.com, 209-464-5067
Jonas Minton, Planning and Conservation League, jminton [at] pcl.org, 916-719-4049
Jim Metropulos, Sierra Club California, jim.metropulos [at] sierraclub.org, 916-557-1100, Ext 109
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta, Barbara [at] restorethedelta.org, 209-479-2053
Dr. Mark Rockwell, Endangered Species Coalition, Federation of Fly Fishers,
mrockwell [at] stopextinction.org, 530-432-0100
Tom Stokely, California Water Impact Network, tstokely [at] att.net, 530-524-0315
Nick Di Croce, Lead Author: California Water Solutions Now, troutnk [at] aol.com, 805-688-7813
An unprecedented coalition of 242 environmentally-oriented organizations blasted a recent federal and state rollover to south of Delta water exporters. The breadth of the opposition to an agency Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) extended from Northern California and Oregon organizations to South Coast groups, to environmental and environmental justice organizations, commercial and recreational fishing organizations, and Indian tribes.
The MOA in question turns over exceptional powers to a select group of exporters involved in the development of the Bay Delta Conservation Program, a program designed to control the future of water supplies from the Bay Delta. No other exporters are granted the same power to influence the project development process.
The MOA provides the exporters with unacceptable influence over the science and technical analyses fundamental to this kind of complex project; it allows exporters to obtain advance reviews of planning documents to the exclusion of others; it allows the exporters to select project consultants.
It also provides water exporters assurances on water supplies while ignoring the same kinds of assurances for the recovery of fish species or Delta habitat; it dictates an unrealistic schedule that will preclude a full analysis of the numerous alternatives to a Peripheral Canal that are available to satisfy the goals of the project, and it changes project goals to one that would increase exports instead of increasing water supply predictability and reducing supply vulnerability. It is clearly a “stacked deck,” as the environmental coalition points out in their letter to federal and state agencies.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is an unprecedented experiment combining one of the largest multispecies habitat conservation plans in history with the potential for a massive hydrologic modification to the largest estuary on the West Coast.
It is essential that this project serve its fundamental purpose as a conservation plan for the critical fish and wildlife resources of the estuary, and not primarily as a Peripheral Canal construction project to increase exports from an already severely degraded estuary.
The environmental coalition appropriately asks that the Memorandum of Agreement be rescinded and rewritten. Here’s hoping the federal and state agencies listen to this unprecedented expression of public input that they always claim to be looking for.
danbacher “Physical attacks on persons violate California Penal Code 242 (Battery) and such violence perpetrated by those in uniform is a criminal violation of Federal civil rights law 18 USC 242,” said Jeff Kravitz, a constitutional rights attorney.
Photo of Occupy lawyers Jeff Kravitz (left), Josh Kaizuka (middle) and Mark Merin (right and speaking) at a press conference in Cesar Chavez Park on October 24. Photo by Dan Bacher.
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by Dan Bacher
The officers involved in the shocking pepper-spray attacks on UC Davis students Friday should be immediately arrested because they’ve violated federal and state laws, said one of the lawyers from Occupy Sacramento in a letter to Governor Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris and other law enforcement officials.
“Physical attacks on persons violate California Penal Code 242 (Battery) and such violence perpetrated by those in uniform is a criminal violation of Federal civil rights law 18 USC 242,” said Jeff Kravitz, a constitutional rights attorney.
Kravitz suggested the state, through AG Harris, as well as Yolo District Attorney Jeff Reisig and US Attorney Benjamin Wagner should make the arrests of the UC Davis officers immediately.
“It is imperative that proper action be taken by County, State and Federal authorities… initiating criminal proceedings including the arrest of those who committed the acts of violence or bringing the issues before a grand jury. Leaving he matter solely in the hands of the University is not a reasonable option,” said Kravitz.
He added that the University of California’s promised investigation is “clearly self-serving and bears resemblance to the investigation conducted by Penn State into the allegations of sex crimes by Jerry Sandusky…an investigation used to protect the university and not the victims.”
For a copy of the letter contact Jeff Kravitz, 916-553-4072 or 916-996-9170.
Occupy Sacramento said it will sends its occupiers to UC Davis today, November 21, to support the Occupy UC Davis students brutally pepper-sprayed and violently assaulted Friday by UC police. A caravan will leave from Cesar Chavez Park shortly after 11 a.m. for a NOON rally at UC Davis.
“We feel it is a necessity to support and assist our friends at UC Davis in their time of need,” said Cres Vellucci, an ACLU board member in Sacramento, and Legal Team coordinator for Occupy Sacramento. “This kind of brutality as seen by the citizen videos circulating the world needs to stop. When someone next asks ‘why’ is there an Occupy, we only need to point to this example of the 1 percent ordering their public servants to punish – without trial – peaceful, non-violent demonstrators.”
“The Occupy movement will not stand for it,” said Vellucci.
There have been 84 arrests at Occupy Sacramento since Oct. 6; Last week, 31 cases were dismissed “in the interest of justice” by the City of Sacramento, which is pursuing charges against 25 others. The District Attorney refused to prosecute the nonviolent occupiers, forcing the City to proceed.
Occupy Sacramento and members of SEIU and other unions marched on Governor Jerry Brown’s loft home Saturday to call for an end to the epidemic of violence by law enforcement agencies against the Occupy movement, as exemplified in the shocking video of police brutally pepper spraying peaceful UC Davis students at a protest. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/11/20/occupy-sacramento-marches-on-jerry-browns-home/)
The video of the November 18 protest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&utm_source=General&utm_campaign=f6cc05a348-Daily_Update_11_20_2011&utm_medium=email) has gone viral throughout the world, highlighting the routine violence that has been used by police agencies in California to suppress any dissent to rule by Wall Street and the 1 percent.
For more information, contact: Cres Vellucci, 916-996-9170, civillib@comcast.net, www.occupysac.org
danbacher “We are sick and tired of UC Davis students being maced and sprayed,” said Kevin Carter of Occupy Sacramento. “We are sick and tired of UC Berkeley students engaged in nonviolent protest being pulverized and having batons shoved into their ribs by police. What gives the police the right to use this type of police brutality?”
Photo of Occupy Sacramento protest in front of Governor Jerry Brown’s loft on Saturday, November 19, by Dan Bacher.
by Dan Bacher
Occupy Sacramento and members of SEIU and other unions marched on Governor Jerry Brown’s loft home Saturday to call for an end to the epidemic of violence by law enforcement agencies against the Occupy movement, as exemplified in the shocking video of police brutally pepper spraying peaceful UC Davis students at a protest.
The video of the November 18 protest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&utm_source=General&utm_campaign=f6cc05a348-Daily_Update_11_20_2011&utm_medium=email) has gone viral throughout the world, exposing the state of California under Jerry Brown as a virtual police state that routinely uses violence to suppress any dissent to rule by Wall Street and the 1 percent.
After marching from the park, protesters gathered on the other side of 16th Street from the Governor’s loft, yelling, “We are the 99 percent,” “The people united, will never be divided,” “When do we want? Justice! – When do we want it? Now!”
Not surprisingly, Brown was not there to hear the pleas of the protesters. A media advisory that I received from the Governor’s office on Saturday stated, “The Governor has left the state.”
“Governor Brown, we challenge you to take up the fight with Occupy,” said Kevin Carter of Occupy Sacramento. “We occupy for the First Amendment, free speech, peaceful assembly and the redress of grievances against the government. As the Governor, you should lead this fight.”
“We are sick and tired of UC Davis students being maced and sprayed,” said Carter. “We are sick and tired of UC Berkeley students engaged in nonviolent protest being pulverized and having batons shoved into their ribs by police. What gives the police the right to use this type of police brutality?”
Carter concluded, “We the people won’t stand for this injustice. We ask you and the State Attorney General to take the lead to stop these police officers from abusing protesters while peacefully assembling.”
In a similar vein, one of the protesters passionately read a letter from Nathan Brown, Assistant Professor in the Department of English Program in Critical Theory at the University of California at Davis, calling for Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehito to resign.
“Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked,” Brown said
“Police used batons to try to push the students apart,” Brown emphasized. “Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.”
“This is what happened. You are responsible for it,” stated Brown.
To send a letter asking Katehi to resign, go to: http://www.change.org/petitions/police-pepper-spray-peaceful-uc-davis-students-ask-chancellor-katehi-to-resign. For more information, go to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-UC-Davis/262907633759444
After rallying in front of Brown’s loft, the Occupy Sacramento and union activists marched back to Cesar Chavez Park for a community lunch, teach-ins and the daily General Assembly.
Before the march, Occupy Sacramento co-hosted a jobs creation/putting America Back-To-Work Rally with SEIU at Cesar Chavez Park. A diverse group of teachers, nurses, public employees, laborers, students and the faith community called for job creation at time when California and the U.S. are in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Sacramento Police, like the UC Davis police and other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation, have waged a campaign against the Occupy movement in what appears to be a coordinated strategy of repression in conjunction with Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies. The City of Sacramento has arrested 84 people at the park since October 6.
Misdemeanor charges were dismissed on Wednesday, November 16 by the City of Sacramento against nine Occupy Sacramento defendants arrested at Cesar Chavez Park over the last month. They were scheduled for full jury trials December 13, according to Cres Vellucci of Occupy Sacramento.
The City dismissed another 7 charges Friday. Another nine, including anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, will have charges tossed early this coming week. “In all, charges are expected to be dismissed or not filed against 40 individuals, the City has indicated to lawyers for Occupy Sacramento defendants,” said Vellucci.
The City Attorney’s Office confirmed the dismissal of charges in a statement released on November 16, although it vowed to continue prosecuting “defendants charged with multiple violations.”
“On November 16, 2011, the City Attorney’s Office, in the interest of justice, commenced dismissing a limited number of cases that arose out of violations of Sacramento City Code section 12.72.090 (remaining at the park after park hours) at the Cesar Chavez Park,” according to the statement. “Each of the dismissed defendants was arrested and booked at the Sacramento County Jail where defendants spent up to one day in a jail cell.”
“After evaluating the facts of each case and criminal history of each defendant, the City Attorney’s office has determined that the arrest and jail time that each dismissed defendant served achieved the People of the State of California’s demand for substantial justice. The City Attorney’s Office will continue to prosecute those defendants charged with multiple violations of Sacramento City Code section 12.72.090 that occurred at Cesar Chavez Park,” the statement concluded.
“This is a vindication not just for the individuals, but for our Constitution and freedom of assembly and speech,” said Karen Bernal, after her charges were dismissed Wednesday. Bernal is the chair of the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus.
For more information about Occupy Sacramento, contact: Cres Vellucci, 916-996-9170, http://www.occupysac.org.
danbacher 
by Dan Bacher
An unprecedented 240 environmental organizations, environmental justice groups, Native American Tribes, recreational angling organizations, commercial fishing groups and outdoor businesses sent a letter on November 16 to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird urging them rescind a controversial Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).
The state-federal BDCP aims to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to corporate agribusiness and Southern California. Delta advocates believe it would lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other imperiled species ravaged by record water exports from 2003 to 2006 and in 2011.
The list of logos of organizations, tribes and businesses signing the letter alone is six pages long. This letter features probably the most extensive, diverse list of organizations ever mobilized in defense of our fish populations and waterways in California history.
For example, Tribes signing the letter include the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Karuk Tribe and Modoc Nation. Environmental groups signing the letter include the Environmental Water Caucus, Sierra Club, Friends of the River, Restore the Delta, Save the American Association, Planning and Conservation League, California Water Impact Network, North Coast Environmental Center, and Environmental Protection Information Center.
Commercial fishing groups include the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fisherman’s Association and Half Moon Bay Trollers Association. Recreational angling groups and businesses include Water for Fish, the Golden Gate Salmon Association, Coastside Fishing Club, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers, California Striped Bass Association, Black Bass Action Commitee, Kokanee Power and the Fish Sniffer magazine. And these organizations are just a fraction of the 242 featured on the letter.
The groups wrote, “The MOA was negotiated behind closed doors and only serves to reinforce the growing awareness that the BDCP is biased in favor of the export water contractor’s agenda to increase exports from the Delta and its connected rivers, despite the documented negative impacts those exports have had on endangered fish species, Delta habitats, water quality and public trust values. Our concerns are similar to the October 24 letter you received from Congressmen Miller, Thompson, Matsui, McNerney, and Garamendi on the same subject.” (http://www.c-win.org/content/dan-bacher-california-representatives-slam-closed-door-bay-delta-process.html)
“We understand that MOAs are a regular aspect of the HCP and NCCP process. Nevertheless, this MOA makes unacceptable concessions to the exporters’ substantive agenda to influence the analytic process, extends no surprises guarantees to contractors in clear conflict with current law, and elevates the contractors to the status of permit holders for public works projects owned and operated by state and federal agencies,” the letter continued.
“We are deeply disappointed that the Obama and Brown Administrations have acquiesced to the export contractors’ efforts to twist what should have been a straightforward financing agreement for planning into a negotiation vehicle to successfully secure unprecedented influence over the HCP/NCCP process,” the letter states.
The letter concludes, “We request that you rescind this biased and unjustified MOA and prepare a new agreement that fairly includes the interests of all parties, including NGO’s, Delta residents, farming and business organizations, environmental justice groups, recreational and commercial fishing organizations, and Native American Tribes. In the absence of such a fundamental rewrite, the undersigned organizations have little alternative but to oppose continuance of the BDCP process.
Bill Jennings from the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Tom Stokely of the California Water Impact Network, Dick Pool from Water for Fish and the Golden Gate Salmon Association, Mark Rockwell of the Endangered Species Coalition, and Nick Di Croce and David Nesmith from the Environmental Water Caucus were instrumental in obtaining the 242 signatories to the letter. Credit must go to Bill Jennings for masterminding the sign-ons for this amazing achievement.
In addition to the unified group letter, organizations also send letters of their own to oppose the state-federal plan to build the canal.
“This agreement corrupts the entire Bay Delta Conservation Plan and assures that there will only be one result of that plan – the export of additional water to the agricultural and Southern California interests at the expense of the water needs of the salmon, the Delta environment and every other water user in California,” wrote Dick Pool, President of Water for Fish.
“You are destroying any pretense of an open and transparent process that includes the interests of all the concerned parties including the salmon fishing industry. By doing this, it is our belief you are setting the stage for the extinction of the Central Valley salmon. By their past actions, it is very clear that the water exporters are unwilling to give up the water that salmon need to survive. You are giving them the power to destroy the salmon and 23,000 jobs in the industry,” Pool concluded.
